BERLIN/PARIS, Jan 20 - Germany and France will put on a show of total unity this week to mark the 50th anniversary of the Elysee Treaty that cemented their post-war reconciliation.
But beneath the public display of friendship, the
Franco-German motor that has long driven Europe is sputtering
and unlikely to offer new policy breakthroughs this year to help
speed the euro zone fully out of its crisis.
French President Francois Hollande will travel to Berlin for
a joint cabinet meeting and session of parliament due on
Tuesday. He will also join German Chancellor Angela Merkel in
giving speeches in the Reichstag building where Adolf Hitler
once presided.
Hollande has been overwhelmed by domestic problems since
taking over from conservative Nicolas Sarkozy eight months ago,
and finds himself hemmed in by a growing euro-wariness within
his Socialist Party and among the wider French public.
Officials in Berlin are watching his early attempts to
overhaul the struggling French economy, worrying that if there
is not more progress soon, the euro’s crisis could flare up
again, enveloping France, and Germany with it.
While Hollande’s poll ratings are at rock-bottom, Merkel is
at the peak of her popularity. But with a federal election due
in September, she is turning inward and thinking less about the
leap forward in European integration that she talked about so
much last year.
Paris is looking to see whether Merkel will be pushed from
power or forced into a coalition with Social Democrats that
would drag her closer to the French vision of a risk-sharing
Europe that favours economic growth over austerity.
“When it comes to policy they are a long way apart and that
makes the relationship tough,” said an EU official who works
closely with both leaders when they are in Brussels for summits.
LIMBO YEAR?
The 1963 signing of the Elysee Treaty by France’s President
Charles de Gaulle and German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer aimed to
foster deep ties between the nations less than two decades after
the Nazi occupation of France.
Over the years the treaty has spawned separate agreements in
education, culture and defence that have sent millions of young
French and Germans on language-learning exchange trips, created
a joint TV channel and Europe’s first cross-border army brigade.
While it is arguable whether it has led to a genuine
cultural affinity – fewer French and Germans speak each others’
language than in 1963 – the broad goal of post-war
reconciliation of their peoples has been achieved.
The fact that 150 million French and Germans between them
represent the southern and northern, Catholic and Protestant
axes of Europe while generating over a third of EU output has
given the partnership unparalleled political and economic clout.
But at each chapter in the history of the European Union,
the entente is painfully stretched until a compromise is found –
and the euro zone’s debt crisis has stretched it more than most.
The much-hyped “Merkozy” rapport between the two
conservative leaders gave way to a more prickly debut to the
Hollande-Merkel relationship, with the French Socialist
initially keen to emphasise policy differences with Berlin.
Officials insist the relationship, while not warm, has since
made it on to a better footing. A diplomatic source in
Hollande’s office said they both favoured a workman-like style
over the policy pyrotechnics of Sarkozy.
“After the change in government in France, both sides needed
time to get to know each other – that is normal,” said Michael
Link, the German foreign ministry official who handles relations
with Paris.
Link and others noted that Paris and Berlin finally managed
late last year to overcome a dispute on how to supervise the
EU’s planned new banking union. They cite this as proof that the
relationship is working, but the two governments remain apart on
future steps to coordinate economic policy more closely.
“The French side is reluctant to transfer sovereignty unless
it is in exchange for steps that are in French interests: a
European unemployment insurance scheme, a big euro zone budget,
eurobonds,” said Daniela Schwarzer at Berlin’s German Institute
for International and Security Affairs in Berlin.
“For this German government, these are taboo.”
GERMANY “STRUGGLES” WITH LEADERSHIP
France’s Europe Minister Bernard Cazeneuve argued to Reuters
such divergences have been an “inseparable” part of the
Franco-German partnership for decades that have always been
surmounted.
But in wider French circles, German intransigence on the
policies for promoting growth which Hollande calls “integration
with solidarity” is beginning to grate.
With Hollande promising to balance French public finances by
2017 and embarking on policies such as labour reform during an
economic downturn, calls for Germany to play its part by easing
off on EU-wide austerity are frequent.
“France finds it hard to accept Germany’s economic
leadership and Germany finds it hard to define that leadership,”
said French industrialist Louis Gallois, who advised Hollande on
steps to boost France’s flagging economic competitiveness.
“The leader should take into account Europe’s interests as
well as its own … I think Germany is still struggling to take
into account Europe’s interests,” he told Reuters last month.
Yet others say the euro zone survived last year because
Merkel came around to a view closer to France’s: that Greece
must not be abandoned and that the European Central Bank should
be allowed to use its massive firepower to prevent future market
assaults on weak euro zone states.
Thomas Klau of the European Council on Foreign Relations
cited ECB chief Mario Draghi’s promise last year to do whatever
was needed to rescue a euro zone country in trouble. “The Draghi
shift was embedded in an Hollande-Merkel consensus,” he said.
To what extent that shift in Merkel’s thinking last August
was influenced by Hollande or by Greek promises to commit to a
painful austerity course is debatable.
With little prospect of any major new Franco-German policy
moves until after Germany’s general election – and possibly not
before French local elections in March 2014 – ambitions for the
partnership have already been toned down.
A German finance ministry official noted discussions between
the two capitals on next steps were “very slow-moving”.
“There is a keenness in France and Germany not to be
spectacular,” said Cazeneuve. “The crisis means we will be
concentrating on operational efficiency.
